Run Faster (Without All the Work)

Sure, you need to do long runs, tempo sessions, and hill repeats to get stronger. But you don't always have to break a sweat in your quest to set a new PR or shave a few seconds off your daily loop. Make this to-do list part of your daily routine.

Ridiculous conclusions throughout history that have—thankfully—failed the test of time

300-400 ADAmong the Athenians, only upper class men deserved athletic opportunities and were trained to perfect their physical beauty through exercise—everyone else was limited to watching the upper crust compete, according to Athletics in Ancient Athens.

1725If your Dad was a dud as a jock, you will be, too, implied physician George Cheyne, M.D., in An Essay of Health and Long Life. Today, researchers suspect that while genes do provide athletic pluses and minuses, dedicated training plays an important role, too.

1901If you're going to bathe, you should do so only after exercising, warned Adrian Peter Schmidt, fitness expert and author of Illustrated Hints for Health and Strength for Busy People. He claimed that the stimulation of a cold bath is "too severe and the reaction, though sometimes pleasant, is anything but invigorating, as depression soon follows."

1950Over the hill? Forget running—it'll stress your heart, said doctors. "Back then, people over 40 were even encouraged to move from a two-story to a one-story house to reduce their exertion," recalls Kenneth Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., founder of Cooper Aerobics Center, who is credited with starting the modern fitness movement.

1957Your fitness score at the end of the exercise manual How to Keep Fit and Like It, by Arthur H. Steinhaus, Ph.D., was determined in part by how well you answered such crucial questions as: "Do you know the best safeguards against atomic attack?" Other determining factors included your tendency to spit on the sidewalk and how regularly you "check light, heat, ventilation, and safety hazards at home and at work."

1960Had a heart attack? Don't run. As medical professionals began to challenge that notion, Cooper says, doctors predicted that, "America would be full of dead joggers." A decade later, researchers recommended that heart attack patients could—and should—resume an exercise program.

1968In Cooper's bestseller Aerobics, he promoted the revolutionary concept that aerobic exercise was a cure-all, and felt that marathoners were immune to heart attacks.

1970sDoctors fretted that women who jogged risked a prolapsed uterus, a condition where the connective tissue holding the uterus weakens, causing it to descend into the vaginal canal or, in severe cases, fall out. "My gynecologist told me I'd better be really careful about that running thing, that it could cause problems for my uterus," recalls Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with a race number. "He cited no evidence, but acted as if this was confirmed truth. Of course, he was smoking a cigarette as he told me this."

1990sRunning is bad for your bones. Or so went the widely held notion that "wear and tear" from running increased your risk for osteoarthritis. However, a recent study spanning nearly 20 years and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported that arthritic knees were no more common in long distance runners than in nonrunners.